Some Things
by ragrabbit
Summary: Set a short time after V first brings Evey to the Shadow Gallery. A few scenes in which Evey discovers the many sides of the vigilante V.
1. Some Things of Value

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from _V for Vendetta_; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd. 

Enjoy

* * *

**Chapter One**

**Some Things of Value **

Evey Hammond hadn't had such a hard time getting out of bed since the day after her parents were taken from her. But as she lay there, in the pitch darkness well into the morning, she couldn't decide whether she was really awake or not. Her eyes were open, but the black curtain of her heavy eyelids couldn't make things darker.

The thick wooden door didn't let many sounds in from the rest of the vast underground home she had been locked in for too long. She could hear the music, though, just the way her companion liked it – spilling between the cracks and over every surface as if the stones themselves were made of sound. Evey often woke to his music, but she also dreamt of it. In her dreams, it was always louder.

This morning, the music was like a small murmur, as if he were standing beside her bed and tentatively calling her name, raising his tone only slightly each time, waiting until his voice was just clear enough to open her eyes.

Evey turned her head to the side. If the light was on, her gaze would have passed through the empty air beside her bed and met the columns of literature against the wall. Only one morning had he come into her room to wake her, and she had startled so that he hadn't done it since.

Finally deciding it didn't matter whether she was awake or not, Evey slithered out of bed and fumbled for a moment with the lamp on her nightstand before switching it on. She looked around, partly expecting to see a person standing in one of the corners. Ignoring the childish feeling that overtook her as she leaned over, she peeked beneath the bed. Confident she was alone, she walked over to the jeans and shirt she had placed on a small armchair the night before. When Evey had first come to this underground shelter, her new companion had slipped back to her cramped apartment and reclaimed her wardrobe before the government could take it all. He brought back her pictures, too. She had thought it eerily considerate of him at the time, before she realized he was innately thoughtful and solicitous. He was many good things, despite the anger, vengeance and violence that gave him a heavy step when he paced and a silent footfall when he stalked.

It was his familiar heavy step which met her ears as Evey stepped out of her room. She listened to him pacing for a while before dragging her weary feet into the main hall. "Good morning, V," she said.

He turned to face her, his ever-smiling, porcelain mask tilting as he said, "I suppose it was."

Evey smiled sheepishly. "I guess I slept it through."

"You probably needed it."

She sighed and crossed her arms across her breasts, hugging herself.

"Is something wrong?" V asked.

Evey realized her anxiety must have been palpable after a night full of nightmares. "I had some frightening dreams," she said.

V's head cocked to the side as it did when something struck his interest. "If sharing them will help, I am – as they say – all ears."

Evey shook her head. "I don't like waking in the dark."

V nodded slowly. "I am sorry, Evey. I hope you understand why this is the only safe place for you right now."

She didn't reply, but made her way toward the bathroom. "I need a shower," she said.

He watched her silently as she disappeared behind the door. For a while, he stood there motionless, his mask facing the floor. He looked up again at the door to the bathroom as the shower began running. He let out a small sigh.

-----

Evey moved slowly and deliberately under the water, not really paying attention to how many times she washed her hair or ran soap over her skin. Her mind was hopping between her nightmares and V. He was a philosophical man, and maybe he could put some meaning to the images that infested her sleep. If only she could bring herself to talk about the darkness, the fingermen, her parents, her brother, everything that her staggering nightmares tossed dead at her feet.

Before she could frighten herself, Evey pushed the nightmares out of her mind, and in their place, stepped V. Perhaps it was because he was the only other person she had spoken to in weeks, but he was constantly on her mind. There had been a fire, he told her – a long time ago. The first time she met him, she thought the mask was to conceal his true identity, but now she knew it must have been because of the fire. It must have been that bad.

She wondered how much it would hurt to be engulfed in flames. Simply slipping under running water when it was too hot was enough to make her cry out.

The kiss of fire and no way to turn it cold…it must have been agony.

She didn't want to think of it, so she turned the shower knob and let the icy water wash the thoughts away.

-----

When Evey came out of the bathroom sometime later, she was greeted by stillness. She looked around a bit before accepting that V had left. She considered going into his room, something she thought of every time he slipped away for a day. But she never gave in to her curiosity; her respect for him was too strong. Admittedly, she was, to a point, afraid of him. She'd seen what he was capable of, how swift and strong he was.

He was wise, intelligent, witty, and half-insane. It made for an intriguing, yet sometimes disturbing combination. Evey had never come across a person who had more twists and turns than V did.

With nothing else to do except stare at the television and succumb to the sometimes-epileptic impressions, Evey decided to shuffle through the hundreds of books V had strewn along the Shadow Gallery.

It didn't surprise her that he had James Joyce in his collections; V spoke a lot like the way Joyce wrote. Every sentence, no matter how banal, was coated with a silky fluidity and the abysmal undertone of a significant something Evey sometimes couldn't place.

So she picked up _The Dubliners_ and began to read, feeling for some reason that she might find something of V in the words.

-----

Hours later, Evey was no longer alone. V had slipped in without her noticing. Sometimes he made it a point to make noise, and other times he didn't want her to know he was around. He enjoyed watching her. When she was alone, she played with her hair, and sometimes hummed childhood lullabies to herself.

It was well after dusk and though he was weary from a day of picking off fingermen and slipping into dark corners, he wanted to take the time to stare at Evey Hammond. He had only been watching a few minutes before she closed the book she was reading and let out a long sigh. A moment later, she got up from the couch and checked her wristwatch.

She decided to wait for V to decide when he wanted to show himself. She wasn't sure how long he had been there, but she felt him. It scared her sometimes, how little she knew this man and how distinctly she felt his presence when he was around her. It was more than the feeling of being watched, and more than the feeling that she wasn't alone. It was V. He had a particular feel to him, and it was heavy.

"What were you reading?" His voice came from the shadows and she looked over to him as he stepped out and showed himself.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked.

"Not long," he answered.

"Joyce," she said to his previous question.

He nodded. "'The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.'"

She laughed. "One of my favorite lines."

"Some things never change," he said, a smile forming behind his mask.

"Like men," she quipped teasingly.

They stared at each other for a moment, both feeling awkward about the flirtatious exchange. V was the one who broke the trance. "I should get to bed," he said, turning away from her.

"V," she said, taking a step toward him.

He turned to face her again and waited for her to say something, anything.

"I may not sleep tonight," she said. "I might watch a film, or read the hours away, I suppose." She shrugged. "If you can't sleep yourself, you're welcome to join me."

He nodded. "I probably will," he said, then turned again and walked away.

"V," she said, making him turn around yet again. She wasn't sure if she hinted some annoyance in the way he swiveled, or whether it was just her imagination. She was desperate for him to stay, after being alone for most of the day. "It gets lonely down here," she said softly.

He didn't say anything for a moment, but lowered his mask slightly. Then, his mood changing suddenly as it did sometimes, he raised his finger as if making an important point. "I have just the thing," he said.

Evey raised a single eyebrow as he walked up to her and grabbed her hand. His fingers were strong and her hand was engulfed by his. "Where are we going?" she asked as he led her.

"You have to be very quiet," he said.

-----

She was as silent as she could be as they made their way through the underground tunnels. She was acutely aware of three things the entire time – How her footsteps were louder and quicker than his, how tightly he held her hand, and how excited her breathing had become. The tunnels were dark, and if she hadn't been following V's lead, she was sure she would have bumped into a few walls and gotten lost. A few turns they took were sharp and she would brush against the stone and nearly trip.

"Where are we going?" she asked, trying to whisper.

"To see something I think you might like," he answered, the timber of his voice low and amused.

A few moments later, V suddenly bumped into something. Evey, not expecting his sudden halt, collided with his back, which made for a harder surface than she would have expected. "V!"

She could vaguely see him in the dark. He chuckled slightly. "I think I took a wrong turn," he said.

"A wrong turn? How could you take a wrong turn? You live down here."

He let go of her hand and turned to face her. She could hear the ruffle of his clothes as he moved. "This is a dead end," he said.

The thought of being lost in the dark started to grip at Evey's heart. She tried not to sound panicked as she said, "Well do you at least know where you took the wrong turn?"

V was silent. Moments passed and Evey was growing more anxious as she listened to his steady breathing. "V!"

He took her hand again. He didn't want to admit that he hadn't been paying as much attention to where he was going as he was to the feel of her hand in his. He was having too much fun running around in the dark with her. "There are only a few dead ends in these tunnels," he said. "And I know which one we're at. It won't be trouble tracing our way back."

She followed him, not so confident as she was before. He was going slower now, pausing every few moments, then moving on. As they moved along in the dark, Evey couldn't help but think of the nightmares she had been experiencing the past few days. Suddenly, a creeping, crippling fear came over her, crawling up her back and trickling along her shoulders. Suddenly, she felt that someone was behind her, reaching for her with spidery fingers.

She gasped and pulled away from V, turning around and falling perfectly still.

"Evey?"

She ignored him, straining to hear another voice, another person breathing, a foreign footstep. Then a gloved hand touched her shoulder and she jumped a bit. "Evey, what's wrong?"

She was breathing raggedly now. Both of his hands were on her shoulders and he pulled her back toward him slightly. "Evey."

There was only darkness. They were swimming in the darkness and emptiness, just the two of them. No one else. They were alone.

She reached up and took his fingers in her hand. He released her and stepped away as she turned to face him, though she could only see a vague silhouette. "I got scared," she said. "I felt like someone was following us."

"There's no one else down here," he replied.

"It's just, I've been having these nightmares."

He took her hand again and led her further down the tunnel. "You mentioned nightmares this morning," he said.

"I don't want to bother you with them."

He didn't reply for a moment, then said, "You could never bother me, Evey."

She stayed silent for a long time. Her grip on his hand was tighter now for fear she might be yanked away by some unseen fiend.

V decided not to pressure her. He knew how personal nightmares were, how true the fears, how crippling the terror. Dark tunnels were not the ideal place to unearth dark impressions.

Shortly, Evey saw a light, and steps leading up to the outside. She would have ran to it if she weren't so afraid to step away from V.

As they stepped out into the moonlight, she realized that they were at an abandoned street. "I don't recognize this," she said.

V pulled her along across the street and into a copse of trees. The moon was bright and Evey could see a path, some benches, and a pond. "This is a park," she realized.

"It was," V replied, keeping his voice at a near-whisper, "Once upon a time."

He suddenly stopped and Evey's body tensed. She looked up at him as he released her hand and brought his gloved finger to the cold lips of his Guy Fawkes mask, which in the moonlight seemed to give him an entirely different expression.

"Just in time," he said, pointing toward the pond. "Look."

Evey stood perfectly still and watched in wonderment as a family of deer walked along the edge of the pond. She gasped a small gasp and grabbed V's long coat. "I never thought…" she began to say, but then her whisper died away and she couldn't say anything at all. She had never seen a deer in all her life, and thought they had all died away. And though she never thought much about wildlife at all, seeing the deer suddenly gave the idea of V a new meaning. This was what he lived for. This was what he strove to instill in the hearts of Britain's people: trust in beauty, and hope in survival.

They stood there in silence, just a fascinated woman and a masked man, appreciating something rare and calming. The deer didn't seem to care that there were people in the park. They walked languidly by the pond, a few sniffing at the water, then disappeared behind the leaves, which in the moonlight looked black and uninviting.

After the deer were gone a while, Evey spoke. "How did you know they were going to be here?" she asked.

"I didn't," V answered. "But I was hoping."

She shook her head in awe. "How are they still alive?"

"They live in the dark," he said. "Because they have to."

And Evey understood. Like desperate survivors, she and V lived in the dark. In the dank, dark underground, hidden from wicked eyes. It was the way it was because it had to be; because survival necessitated sacrifice.

Evey finally let go of V's coat and walked over to the pond. V followed her a few moments later. The water in the dark was a glossy obsidian, the moonlight painting sapphire ribbons across the surface. "I could fall in there," Evey said, more to herself.

"It's deep," V replied, coming up beside her. "I've thought of falling in there, too."

"It's frightening, yet inviting in a way." She looked up at him and he turned his head to meet her gaze. "Thank you," she said.

He nodded and looked away. "We shouldn't linger," he said. His voice was quiet, pensive. It was as if he were talking to the water and not to her.

Evey stood another moment by the pond before turning around and going the way they had come. V hesitated before following her. And in that moment of hesitation, he very well could have let himself fall into the cavernous shadows and sink into the wet night.

* * *

Thank you beforehand for reviews and constructive criticisms. A writer appreciates both with equal weight. 

The quote "The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you" is from "The Dead," a beautiful short story in _The Dubliners_ by James Joyce.


	2. Some Things Vivid

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from _V for Vendetta_; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

I had to change the rating from K+ to T because of adult themes.

Thank you immensely for taking the time to review this so far.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Two **

**Some Things Vivid**

Evey lay in the darkness that night, trying not to forget the way V's hand felt around hers, the way the deer moved in the stillness of the abandoned park, the way the pond whispered for her to join it. Sleep came and went in twenty minute intervals, teasing her with comfort and pulling away, leaving her to face the darkness in and out. It wasn't until she turned her nightstand lamp on and let the light saturate the room that her frenzied mind finally relented and let her dream.

_She hadn't felt herself getting out of bed, couldn't remember weaving her way through the tunnels, climbing the steps into the air. But she was standing by the pond._

"_Evey..."_

_She heard his voice from all directions, caressing her face, running through her hair like the breeze that rippled the glassy surface of the pond. She closed her eyes and spread her arms, leaning forward slightly, testing her balance against the pull of the pond._

_Fingers on her shoulders. "Pull me in," she whispered to the water._

_But she was pulled away by a force stronger than her own, stronger than the water. She turned and found herself facing the white Guy Fawkes mask that meant so many things to her. She took a deep breath, as if she had just broken the surface of a bottomless sea, and was overcome by faintness._

_She lost her balance, but his hands guided her gently to the ground. Her fingers touched the edge of the pond and the water crawled over her palm. She looked up into the mask, smiling and inanimate, as his arms wrapped around her small frame._

"_V," she whispered. "Pull me in."_

And she was back in her bed again. Her eyes opened slowly and the light seeped in. "V?" she whispered. There was no answer. She was alone. A glance at her watch told her it was just past nine.

For a moment, she felt a crippling need overcome her – she had to see the pond. She had to see the water in the daylight. She had to see that beneath the surface, there was just more water. Water, mud, and cold.

She wanted to explore the tunnels again. She wanted V to grab her by the hand and take her out somewhere majestic, somewhere pensive, somewhere that meant more than simply something.

But then music, as the jukebox turned on, brought her back to her room. Her bare feet stiffened on the cold stone floor. She hurriedly slipped into her jeans, socks, a sweater. Part of her didn't want to leave the room and face V, not after dreaming of him holding her and saving her. She didn't want to stand away from him, keeping her distance like she knew he preferred. She didn't want to sit beside him on the couch and feel him pulling for her with imaginary arms, imagine him whispering her name like the water, reaching out for her with ambiguous intentions.

It was always in her mind and he never sat close enough.

-----

Walking out of her room and turning the corner, Evey found V lying on the piano bench. He had one foot up, the other on the stone floor. He was reading a book as the jukebox emitted the sultry voice of a woman singing about rain and heartbreak.

V closed the book when Evey got near and sat up quickly. "Good morning, Evey," he said.

"I woke up on time for it, at least," she replied with a smile. "I can't thank you enough for last night."

He was straddling the bench and slouching a bit, tapping the book almost silently against the bench cushion. She realized he was tapping along with the slow drawl of the woman's voice filling the Shadow Gallery with her sad symphony. "The fresh air was refreshing," he finally said, then stood and set the book on top of the piano. He walked past her into the kitchen. "Would you care for breakfast?"

Evey stared at the book for a moment, immediately recognizing the French author's name. Her head cocked to the side and an eyebrow went up.

V saw her staring intently at the book. "Evey," he said, "Are you hungry?"

She looked at him. "I suppose. I'm not sure, really. You're reading the Marquis de Sade," she said, picking the book up. There was no script on the back or the front, only his name on the spine. It was an off-white color, with watermarks along the edges of the pages; it was well used.

V smiled from behind his smiling mask. "Makes for good early morning reading," he said.

"More like in bed late into the night and in a certain mood reading," Evey replied, opening the book at a random page and immediately soaking into the words.

"Not necessarily."

"Oh, the erotica's just a fun little bonus. It's the philosophy you're really after," she said, the sarcasm thick in her voice.

V walked over to her and took the book. "Despite the sarcasm, you are absolutely correct," he said. He put the book back down on the piano and went back into the kitchen. Evey followed him, seating herself at the small rectangular table.

"What are you hungry for?" he asked.

Evey smiled, trying not to imagine any undertones in his comment. "Oh, I don't know," she said in a sing-songy sort of way. She was suddenly in a playful mood.

"How about some french toast?" he suggested, opening the cabinets one-by-one and perusing their insides.

But Evey was distracted by the book, by its contents, by its long-dead author. "I could never get over the fact that de Sade was a degenerate," she said. "Couldn't quite take him seriously."

"A degenerate?" V turned to face her again. He leaned against the counter, a metal pan hanging from his gloved hand. "You sound like Bonaparte."

"Napoleon had a point in locking de Sade away," she said. "He was a philanderer. He was a nymphomaniac, an adulterer, a seducer who engaged in countless orgies with men, women, boys, girls. He glorified sadomasochism, fetishes, unrestrained promiscuity. He's fortunate he managed to stay alive."

V set the pan on the stove with a clank, opened a drawer and fished in it for a moment as he said, "Which would you prefer? Enduring a moment of your own execution, or trying to survive day after day locked away in a prison, listening to the crazed cries of anonymous someones, trying to convince yourself that you're not one of those voices?"

Evey stared at him, watched his black-clad back as he stopped everything he was doing and fell motionless. They stayed there in the stillness for quite a while, Evey sitting and watching, V standing and breathing. Something had happened, but Evey wasn't quite sure what. V had said those words, but she didn't know what he was telling her. It went beyond the Marquis; it went beyond Napoleonic France and the Reign of Terror. It was too V; too distinctly him.

Finally, her vigilante companion turned around and Evey looked up at him. A bit of tension fluttered off his shoulders and he stood up straight, saying, "'We ought no more be astonished at the diversity she has put in our features than at that she has placed in our affections.'"

"Who is 'she'?" Evey asked.

"Nature."

Evey sighed and leaned back in the hard kitchen chair. "I think nature, like many things, is capricious."

V turned back to the stove and stared at it, tentatively fingering the handle of the pan. "I don't much feel for making anything," he muttered.

"I'm not hungry," Evey reassured him. "How about a banana?"

He nodded and grabbed a banana from the counter. As he peeled it for her, handed it to her, and took a seat across from her, he said, "All the world is marinated in capriciousness."

"Why, do you think?" Evey asked, taking a bite of the banana. For a moment, she thought she could live off bananas and never need anything else. "This is so tasty," she muttered.

"Because intentions are fostered by convenience," V replied. "And I'm sure it is tasty."

Evey smiled. "It was convenient for France to lock the Marquis away, but not convenient to kill him."

"They used him. They were afraid of what he had to say, so they used him, took away his liberty, pilfered his words, all in a desperate but vain effort to find the balance between letting him breathe but keeping him quiet."

Evey stared at the table, at V's hands flat and black on the white surface. "Do you think Sutler hates literature because writers are revolutionaries?"

V leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Sutler hates literature because it is enlightening."

"And he wants to keep us in the dark." Evey took another bite of her banana. She chewed on the soft mushiness of it for a while in silence. V's mask was facing her, but she couldn't tell if he was watching her, or if his eyes were closed, or if he was staring off somewhere. It unnerved her, not knowing where his eyes were focused, or even what color they were. All she saw were black, lifeless slits, staring at nothing and everything.

She put her banana down on the table, gazing at it for a moment before looking up at V again. "What color are your eyes?" she asked on a whim.

Without replying, V stood up and walked over to the piano. He took the book in his hand and turned his head slightly in Evey's direction. "Red," he said, and walked away.

* * *

The quote "We ought no more be astonished at the diversity she has put in our features than at that she has placed in our affections" is from _Philosophy in The Bedroom_ by the Marquis de Sade, from whose name the word "sadism" was derived.

Again, thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. Thanks so much. :)


	3. Some Things With Vehemence

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from _V for Vendetta_; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Multiple thanks for the generous reviews. Thank you, thank you!

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Three**

**Some Things With Vehemence**

Evey had been standing at the jukebox for hours it seemed, listening to song after song. Many of them were slow and sad and sometimes significant. She thought of V and his plan to destroy Parliament. She thought of how much energy and spirit he dedicated to making things right in his eyes. She knew he had to be more than a man who looked around and saw things weren't right. Men did that every day. There was something that pushed V past that point of seeing and choosing to ignore; something she feared she was without.

She thought of the methodical way he moved and talked, knowing that behind that mask, underneath all those layers of black, there was always more going on that she couldn't see. It beat at her, the uncertainty, the constant wondering.

"How did you get here," she murmured. Her voice was smothered by the music as she repeated the question over and over.

-----

V sat in his room, listening to the muffled music through his closed door, knowing that Evey was out there waiting for him to show himself again. He wasn't reading, or sleeping, or writing, or planning. He was sitting in the darkness, his mask off and settled by his thigh. He thought of Evey. He thought of Sutler, of the ones he'd killed and the ones he had to kill. He thought of his vendetta, and of the eternity he had spent locked up in a cell, losing himself, forgetting everything.

His fingers came up to his face and he explored his own features, the still-foreign casket in which he was forced to subsist. He wasn't in a cell anymore, but he was locked in his body, locked behind the mask. All that was left of the man he once was were his eyes. He didn't want to think of what color they were; all they saw was blood…and her. They saw her, even when they were closed in the middle of the night and he was at the mercy of his unconscious. She was almost always there, her mocha gaze pleading for something he couldn't quite recognize.

He was anxious. His body wanted to move, wanted to do something more dynamic than sitting in bed in the darkness. He considered asking Evey to dance with him, but didn't think she would accept.

He considered sitting Evey down and telling her all he could remember about Larkhill; tell her why it was vital for him to do what he was doing; defend his actions.

And yet, he felt he didn't need to defend himself, even to her. The moment he felt the need to defend himself meant the moment he doubted his intentions. There was no room for doubt anymore; no room for hesitation.

He thought of the conversation from that morning, how much he admired the Marquis de Sade for being a patron of freedom – something so lacking in the world they lived in now. Evey couldn't understand the parallels between his life and the Marquis'; She didn't realize that they were both kindred spirits, both revolutionaries of their time, both unrepressed by the law, by the government, by the world. He so wanted her to understand.

Finally, he switched the lamp on beside his bed. The light was dim and weak, struggling to blanket every wall, every surface – not quite strong enough to fill every crevice. V took his mask in his hands, cradling it in his scarred palms.

It was rare for him to have an irresolute moment. He was so set in his ways, so sure of the present and the future. But Evey threw him off balance, made him feel vulnerable. She turned his heart against his mind and shoved him off course.

The ambiguity of the tension that hung between them made him want to be rid of her and be near her all at once. Bit by bit they discovered more about each other, and still she gazed at him as if trying to solve a riddle. He needed her to stop gazing. He needed her to recognize who he was. He needed her to understand what he was.

There was no living with her otherwise.

And if it meant telling her about Larkhill, he would have to quell his misgivings and face her judgment. She had to know about what they had done to him. She had to know what haunted his dreams, drove his vengeance, fueled his ideals.

"You will not be defending yourself," he whispered, his eyes fixed on the mask in his hands. It smiled at him, lifeless yet evocative. He stared at it. It had become so much a part of his identity that he felt eerily as if he were gazing upon himself.

With a sigh, he secured the mask on his face. "No point in hesitating further," he said, moving for the door. "'If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.'"

-----

Evey was finally tired of staring at the jukebox and getting no answers. It was much like staring at V's grinning mask. She turned away from the contraption and was startled to see that the object of her thoughts was standing a few feet behind her, still and silent and watching.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, her hand coming up to her chest, her fingers clutching the silky area of skin right above her breasts.

"A few moments," V answered. He walked over to the jukebox, stood very near to her, and chose a song.

"Aren't you ever tired of music?" Evey asked wearily as she looked up at him.

"'If music be the food of love, play on,'" he replied quietly – so softly she hardly heard him. Then louder, and facing her, he said, "I like her," as a woman's sensuous voice filled the room.

Evey glanced at her watch. It was past noon.

"Pressing appointment?" V asked.

"Life canceled on me," Evey replied bitterly.

"Isn't she fickle."

Evey smiled. Somehow he understood her sometimes, or at least what she was feeling. She wanted to ask him to take her through the tunnels again, but he spoke first.

"Will you sit with me, Evey?"

His voice was sober, slow. Evey nodded and followed him to the couch in front of the television. They each sat on one side, V positioning himself so that he was facing her. Evey crossed her legs as she settled onto the cushion, and they sat for a still moment staring at each other as she waited for him to speak.

"There's a lot I cannot say," he said. The tone of his voice told Evey that something valuable was about to transpire, something she had to take to heart. And for the first time, she was sure he was looking into her eyes. "There are names I cannot give. There are many things I don't even remember. But I can tell you about Larkhill."

He told her everything he could remember about Larkhill. He told her about the poisons, the torture, the cells, the soldiers, the doctors, the roses. He told her about the pits.

He told her about the pain.

He told her about the men and the women and the way they screamed, reached out with their cries for something to hold on to, something to keep them from falling forever into the darkness. How each day was always quieter than the last, as one by one, the voices were ultimately silenced.

How time passed like a liquid, taking all shapes and sizes, molding into itself sohe couldn't tell where it began, where it ended, or how much of it was falling through the cracks.

"How many were there?" she asked. "How many victims?"

"There was a long line of them," he answered, his voice jaded and slow, "Before they all wasted away. Walking cadavers, their eyes a long time dull, their hearts tick-tocking 'till their time ran out."

"How did you escape?"

Slowly, with some hesitance, he told her about the fire; how he had caused it;how he didn't really feel anything but anger and hatred and desperation.

He told her that the man he was born to be died at Larkhill. That the man he was now was simply an idea trying to permeate the hearts of other men, and women, and children – the multitudes who were themselves more powerful than poisons and cells and governments.

When he could say no more, they sat for a long while in silence.

V was weary. He could feel the anger welling up inside him. He could feel it yanking at his heart – the fury, the desire to hunt, to satiate his thirst for vengeance.

But all he could do was sit there and stare at Evey's feet, small and bare and somehow calming.

Evey wanted to tell him she was sorry, but she knew it wouldn't change anything. He was sorry, she was sorry, but nobody else was.

"What happened to them," she asked, "The people who did those things to you?"

V looked up at her with a heavy head. "What eventually comes to all people who commit crimes against humanity," he said, suddenly getting up from the couch.

Evey watched him as he walked away from the couch, toward the main hall. "And what is that?" she asked.

"Justice."

Her eyes narrowed. "Not from the law," she said knowingly, "Not for them."

V stopped in his step and turned to her. They looked at each other in silence, neither of them sure they wanted to voice what they were thinking.

Evey looked away, and heard his boots against the floor as he resumed his path. She stared at her feet and tried to not think or wonder about anything.

Then the footsteps stopped.

"Ask yourself, Evey…" V said, his voice farther away.

She looked up. He was at the piano.

"If you were Beowulf, what would you have done when the dragon came prowling into your land and devouring your people? Would you have sat and watched, let it all happen? Or would you have picked up your sword and fought the fight?"

Without waiting for her to answer, he turned his back to her and sat on the piano bench. A moment later, their underground haven was suffused with an ancient melody, and anything Evey would have said was washed away by the music.

* * *

The quote "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly" is from Shakespeare's _Macbeth._

"If music be the food of love, play on" is from Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night._

(Is it obvious I love Shakespeare? I call him Will sometimes, it's ridiculous)

As usual, thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. Many many thanks :)


	4. Some Things Vulnerable

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from _V for Vendetta_; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Many thanks for your benevolent reviews so far.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**Some Things Vulnerable**

_One by one, they were disappearing. Evey stood at the edge of the obsidian pond in the shadowy park, watching as a line of ducklings were plucked one at a time into the murky depths. There was no watchful mother to lead them away, and Evey could do nothing but gaze in horror and wonder as they disappeared._

_Soon, they were all gone, and she was alone, and feeling empty and angry and sad. They were such pretty little ducklings._

_Before she could realize her decision, Evey jumped in. All of the sudden she was swimming in the gloomy depths, going down and down and down for what seemed like days and days and days._

_Vengeance. Like a swarm of living things, vengeance clouded the water._

_And suddenly, something unknown grabbed her, pulled her down to the bottom of the pond and struck her hard against her armor-plated breasts. "Vengeance," her attacker croaked. "Vengeance!"_

_Evey shook her head as she lay at the bottom of the pond, the hilt of a heavy sword in her limp hand. "Who are you!" she cried out, but her voice was muffled by the helmet that guarded her face. She tried to take it off, to yank it off her head. But it was fixed in place. "You killed those ducklings," she muttered weakly, looking up at the dark looming figure in the water. Slowly, her hand came up, the sword lifting._

"_Vengeance," the creature cried._

"_Justice," Evey whispered._

"_Vengeance!"_

"_No!" Evey cried as the creature grabbed her arm and jerked it off her body. The pain was like heartbreak burning her shoulder, her neck, her mind. She screamed and raised her other arm in a vain defense as the creature pounced on her._

Evey's eyes fluttered open. Darkness. All the room was dark and looming. Panicked, she fumbled with the lamp on her nightstand before it finally clicked on. And the light was like a breath of air, filling the spaces and casting a gleam over every surface of her bedroom. The dream was still fresh, as cloudless as a memory. All her nightmares lingered so.

It was well past midnight. How strange it was, she always thought, how sleep abbreviated the hours, and how dreams manipulated them.

She stepped out of the bed and walked over to the multitude of books along the walls of her bedroom. She didn't doubt that V had read them all. Some of the titles she was familiar with; others were entirely foreign. But this night, she was looking for a particular one.

Minutes passed as she slowly scanned the spines of every book. Some of them were facing the wrong way and she would have to carefully wrest the book from the column to see the words painted on the pages.

"How curious," she said to herself as she finally found the book she sought and carefully removed it from the pile, "That you would find your way into my nightmares."

She brushed the front cover of the book with her fingers and opened it. The book was weathered. The spine crackled from years of neglect. She flipped through the pages, then closed the book with a small thud and headed for the door.

-----

V tried to fall asleep. So often he needed slumber, thirsted for slumber, and got wide-eyed hours of thought and waking dreams instead. And when he slept, he was haunted by Larkhill. He was haunted by Evey. He was haunted by the mask, and by himself.

Tonight was one of his sleepless nights. His sheets lay crumpled at his feet where he had kicked them away. The room couldn't get cold enough for him to numb the pain. He tried lying on the floor for a while, but it reminded him too much of lying in a prison cell. He tried leaning his naked back against the walls, but it made him feel ridiculously desperate. So he finally relented to his bed and pillow and gazed into the darkness that consumed him.

And then he heard a single knock at his door. "'Tis some visitor," he muttered, getting up out of his bed and walking to the door.

"V?"

Being as she was the only other person sharing his living space, V wasn't surprised to hear Evey's muffled voice through the wood. But he was staggered to find her at his door in the middle of the night.

He hesitated.

"V, it's a little frightening out here," Evey said. Her voice had a quiver to it. "Please let me in. The lights are off."

He couldn't leave her out there frightened and waiting as he got dressed and put his mask on. He rested his forehead on the door and sighed.

Evey was about to burst out of her skin when she finally heard the door opening. She felt a hand on hers – bare skin – as she was pulled inside. As quickly as the door was shut, V released her. And there they were, standing in the dark, neither of them immediately saying anything.

Interesting how the lack of light makes one feel like there should be a lack of sound. Evey thought if she spoke, she would be disturbing the darkness. But someone had to say something.

"Were you sleeping?" Evey whispered.

"No," V answered. His breathing sounded different, and Evey realized he must not have his mask on. She could vaguely see his silhouette, but it revealed nothing more than the shape of a man standing near her. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Evey cradled the book in her hand. She wanted to hand it to him, but couldn't quite tell how far away he was from her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bother you."

"Not at all," he replied. And when he spoke again, his voice was farther away. "Is there something the matter?"

She didn't reply for a moment as she massaged the spine of the book with her fingers.

V walked up to her again and touched her arm. "Evey."

She gave a start, then laughed slightly. "You startled me," she said.

"Come sit," he said, leading her through the dark room until her legs hit something. It was an armchair, she realized after extended her arm and feeling over it. Carefully, she sat it in. V released her and she felt exposed as he stepped away.

"V?"

"I'm right here," he said. He took the armchair across from her, which was situated very near. He used them both to lie down sometimes and stretch his legs while he read. "I'm sorry I can't turn the light on," he said.

"I've been getting used to the dark. Are you angry with me?"

He sighed. "No, I'm not angry with you, Evey."

"Take this," she said, extending her hand and offering the book to empty space.

After a moment, V's fingers found it and he took it. "What is it?" he asked. She heard the book crackle as he opened it.

"It's _Beowulf_."

He nodded, though she didn't see it.

"I am familiar with it," she said.

"I know," he replied. "You mentioned Grendel once, remember, when you said one of my statues made you think of him?"

Of course. She had only mentioned the monster in passing, but she remembered. It was the day he had brought her the bundle of clothes from her apartment. It was a sad day.

She bit her lip, unsure of what she had intended to say to him. "Earlier, when you mentioned the story, I knew you were trying to tell me something because I wasn't understanding. It's difficult for me to understand vengeance, V."

"The definition of vengeance is circumstantial."

"It breeds damaging ramifications."

"For those it is being enacted upon, naturally."

"And others," she insisted. "What about _The Count of Monte Cristo_? What about Mercedes?"

"What was done to Edmund Dantes was unforgivable," V replied.

"He was selfish."

"Because everyone he cared for betrayed him."

She shook her head. Her mind was grappling for some way to connect with him, but her thoughts were racing frenetically between one story and the next, one dream and the next, one idea and the next.

"Why did Beowulf kill Grendel's mother?" she asked.

"Do you not think he should have?"

"Was it justified to hunt her down?"

V was having trouble discerning her argument. "Evey, what are you trying to tell me?" he asked, his voice disembodied in the shadows.

She sighed. "I'm just trying to understand, V…So much of what Beowulf did was for personal glory."

"In his youth, yes. I like to think I'm more comparable to the older, more practical Beowulf," V replied. After all, he wasn't young anymore.

"And Sutler's the dragon devouring your people."

"Yes." he said, relieved that she had understood.

Evey stared at the ground, though she couldn't see it. She so wanted to turn the light on, so that she could see his face without the mask – if he still had a face after the fire. Fire and dragons. How odd the way things tied together.

"What do you want to hear, Evey?" V asked.

"The dragon killed Beowulf," she said.

There was a long pause and V sighed before saying, "Beowulf believed that his life was controlled by fate. So he went into every battle knowing that no matter how hard he fought, he may lose, simply because it was his destiny…I cannot help but agree with him. Fate can touch me, take me, pull me away from all of this reality. But to all others – men, government, walls, and laws – I am invulnerable."

"But you're not invincible, V."

"Neither was Beowulf."

"He's a fictional character!"

"But what he stood for was alive and real. It still is. Ideas are immortal, like the words they're written in. I don't want to be great. I don't want to a be a king. But I hope that I am as successful as Beowulf was in influencing the people. That's all I want, Evey. I want to remove the blindfolds."

"But this is a different world. Different obstacles. You can't fight your way to the top."

"Yes you can, Evey!"

He got up from the chair and kneeled in front of her, placing the book on her lap, his hands on her knees. "Don't you see? You've been conditioned to feel powerless. Sutler wants you to believe that literature means nothing. That you can't associate it with reality. But all the truths in the world are on pages, in print. These are the how-to guides to life, Evey. These are the warning labels, the instruction pamphlets, the little slips of paper in fortune cookies." He stopped himself, calmed himself. "If you can learn anything from _Beowulf_, it's that no matter what the circumstance, there's always a way to win."

"Even if it kills you?"

"Yes."

Evey let out a frustrated sigh, and V bowed his head in the silence that followed.

Her hand touched his wrist and he fought the instinct to pull away. Her fingers were soft and warm. He bowed his head and tried to forget what he looked like as her hand moved up his arm, to his shoulder. Would she be touching him if she could see him?

Evey could feel the scar tissue, smooth against her palm, a little jagged in some spots. She could feel the warmth spilling out of his flesh. She could hear his breathing, see his vague shape in the darkness as he knelt at her feet.

"Why can't I be more like you?" she whispered. "More like my parents."

V closed his eyes, willing himself to remember this moment for the rest of his life; this touch, her hand. "You don't have to be," he said, "Just believe in it. Don't let yourself get lost in Sutler's game. You're not malleable, Evey. You wouldn't be here if you were."

"You brought me here."

"Because of a decision you made."

She bowed her head and her hand slipped slowly down V's arm as it went lax. He took her fingers and held them a moment before releasing them.

"I can't sleep," Evey said. "I'm having too many nightmares."

He didn't reply.

She shook her head, a tear sliding down her cheek. "You're in most of them. Somehow, you're in them, manifested in some different way. Tonight you were me, you were Grendel's mother, you were the pond up there in the park."

The tears kept falling and she couldn't stop herself from finally letting her fears and concerns and years of heartbreak let themselves loose there in V's bedroom, dark yet comforting as it was. She looked around, but could see nothing. "I'm not making any sense," she said softly, wiping the moisture off her cheeks and sniffling. She wondered if V cried when he was overwhelmed.

"We all have a conscious part in our dreams," he said, "And that is to make sense of them the morning after."

"_Beowulf_ is obvious. You had mentioned it. But why all the characters, and why you in all the roles?"

V imagined he'd become many things to Evey since he'd saved her life. He was her captor, but not her enemy. He was her companion, but not her confidant. She knew what he was, but not who he was. He imagined he could be anything in a dream if he could be anything in reality. But he was hesitant to voice these thoughts. They were too intimate.

He got up from his kneeling position before her and sat back in his armchair with a sigh.

"What do you do when you have nightmares?" Evey asked.

"I don't have many," he replied, though it was a lie. He was beset by his nightmares, just as Evey was by hers. Every night, he would try to survive on as little sleep as he could, so as to abbreviate the hours of torment. Even on the nights that would begin with pleasant dreams of blue skies and her and an ordinary visage, he would wake from a nightmare.

"I feel sometimes as if someone is in my room, or stalking me in the dark," she said.

"I would know if there were anyone here," V said. "They most certainly wouldn't make it as far as your bedroom."

"But some nights you're gone until dawn."

"They cannot get in, Evey – I assure you."

She shook her head and said nothing. She felt safe when V was in the Shadow Gallery with her, even if her nightly demons continued to terrify her. She felt safe, at least, from the outside, from the danger she knew was neither illusory nor remote. When he was away, she feared the simplest sound. And every time he returned home, she would think for a moment it was somebody else. How she wished she could stare out a window and have a look around, see all was as it should be, and sit back down.

But there were no windows down here, and nothing ever seemed as though it was as it should be.

She heard a shuffle as V moved, then all was silent. "V?"

His voice was far away when he spoke. He had silently moved to another part of the room. "A moment," he said.

She waited patiently as she listened to his movements. "I suppose I'm keeping you awake," she said. "I should get back to bed."

"I'll come with you," he said.

"To bed?"

He didn't reply immediately. "To show you something."

"I didn't mean anything by that," Evey said, shaking her head at herself.

"I know," V replied. Of course she hadn't meant anything by it. He wasn't a regular man with a regular face for whom a woman like her might have even an unconscious interest in. He did, however, find it slightly amusing that she had asked the question just as he was taking his trousers off to change into his regular black attire.

Evey decided it best to stay quiet rather than try to recover from her slip. V was moving a lot, and she could hear clothes rustling. A few moments later, the light suddenly blanketed the room, blinding Evey. She covered her eyes for a moment, and when she looked up, V was dressed and in his mask. "You were getting dressed," Evey said.

"Now we can see," he replied.

Evey looked around. The first detail that struck her eye was the bed. It was large, and there were several pillows. His sheets, slightly tousled but not untidy, were black, which didn't surprise her. Various paintings were strewn along the walls, and wooden masks with bizarre expressions. The room was large, but surprisingly cozy.

V grinned behind his mask as he watched Evey's fascinated perusal of his room. He'd never had anyone in his bedroom, but he took pride in the art he had chosen for it. "All set?" he asked.

Evey looked over at him and nodded. She got up from the armchair, which was also black, and followed him out of the room. He turned on various lights as they made their way through the Shadow Gallery. Evey followed close behind, and realized V was softly humming a tune as they walked. She wondered if he was taking her through the tunnels again, but they stopped by a large chest in the main hall. He crouched down in front of it and used the key he had been holding in his palm to open it. Evey stood behind him and watched intently as he lifted the lid. It opened with a metallic creek and rested against the wall behind it. Evey's eyebrows shot up as she saw the plethora of sheathed blades stored inside the chest, much like the ones along his belt at which she sometimes found herself gaping.

Just as Evey was imagining how she might manage to stab an attacker, who would probably be a man at least fifty pounds heavier than she was, V pulled out a strongbox. "I'm going to teach you how to use this," he said, his voice serious and stern. In the back of his mind, V knew he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. But in his heart, he couldn't imagine Evey being defenseless in his absence. He had still to become accustomed to her living with him, and some nights, he would forget she was down there by herself, with nowhere to run and nothing to fight with if anyone should happen upon her.

He opened the box and took out a handgun. Evey stared at it as he stood and handed it to her. "Hold it," he offered.

It was heavier than she expected as he placed it in her palm. "You have to be confident about it," he said.

She stared at the black weapon in her hand, inspecting every detail of it. "It's rather simple, actually," he said, holding his hand out for it. She placed it back in his fingers.

"Makes me feel powerful, holding it," she said, "But terribly naïve."

V looked at her and held the gaze for a moment. "I would rather you had the glock," he said. "A woman with a gun is far more intimidating than a woman with a dagger."

She nodded, still recovering from the surprise of the chest-full of weapons and the weight of the gun in her grip. "Why don't you use a gun?" she asked.

"It's too loud," he replied. "But you'll want something loud down here."

"To startle?"

He nodded, placing the gun back in the strongbox and closing the large chest. As he locked it, Evey picked the box up from the floor. It was hefty.

"I'm nervous about this, V," she said.

He stood and took the box from her. "Hopefully it will stay in the coffer," he said.

-----

Evey led the way this time, to her bedroom. Already, she was feeling more secure. Part of her was excited about the prospect of wielding a gun and learning how to use it properly. V set the box on the nightstand by her bed as Evey crawled under the covers. He placed the key on top of it.

"I'm exhausted," she said.

V sat beside her on the bed and sighed. Evey stared at him, her eyes already feeling languid. She liked their positions – her in the covers, him sitting beside her. There was something about the moment that made her feel comfortable.

"Thank you," she said.

He looked at her. "I'm sorry I hadn't thought of it before, Evey," he said. "I've been preoccupied."

She shook her head. "So have I. Obviously. I'm sorry I kept you awake."

"Not at all." He stood and made to leave, but Evey's hand gripped his gloved fingers.

"V," she said, wishing she could feel his skin again. "What if the dragon kills you?"

"'So every man must yield the leasehold of his days,'" he replied.

She stared at his fingers, which had curled around hers. "What will happen to me?"

He sat back down, this time nearer to her. "You're my Wiglaf, Evey – for as long as you want to be. Everything I leave behind will be yours."

Evey didn't think she was brave enough to be Wiglaf; to be the only soldier who didn't run, who didn't cower, who didn't fail.

"Wiglaf went on to be a great king," she said, her voice overcome with apprehension.

V stood again and switched the light off. Evey didn't protest. She closed her eyes and let the darkness bathe her. Then she felt V's hand on her shoulder. "Evey," he said, "You are already a great woman. All you need is to trust."

"I do trust you."

"Yourself, Evey. You need to trust yourself."

His hand slid off her shoulder, slowly, and she listened to his soft footfall as he walked out of the room. The door closed softly as she was left alone. And for the first night since she had arrived at the Shadow Gallery, Evey felt free of disquiet as she yielded to the slumber that consumed her.

* * *

The quote "'tis some visitor" is from "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, a widely misunderstood genius.

"So every man must yield the leasehold of his days" is from _Beowulf,_ an epic tale as ancient as its themes. Do read it if you haven't.

Thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. A hundred thanks. :)


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